It’s a sad fact of life, but publishing is a business. Not only that, it’s a cutthroat business. So is bookselling.
With profit margins shrinking and the sudden surge in e-book sales, the entire industry is in an uproar, and nowhere more so than in good, old brick-and-mortar bookshops. Frankly, aside from a recent visit to the Mecca of Books (a thoroughly unsatisfactory visit, too, I might add), I can’t remember the last time I was in an actual bookstore.
Well, it just became a shooting war.
Stephanie Burgis, author of the beloved Kat books for young readers, recently posted about major developments between Simon & Schuster and Barnes & Noble (lots of ampersands there…sorry). She refers us to articles posted in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal (both of which are worth a read), but here’s the bottom line:
Barnes & Noble has reduced [Simon & Schuster] book orders greatly, to almost nothing in the case of some lesser-known writers.
This, in my opinion, is the death-knell for B&N. If they don’t back off of this stance, I give them five years, at most.
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 